1999 Fleming, Joseph Fourier, the greenhouse effect, and the quest for a universal theory of terrestrial temperatures (1119302)

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Joseph Fourier, the ‘greenhouse effect’,and the quest for a universal theory ofterrestrial temperaturesJames R. FlemingThe central role that the theory of terrestrial temperatures played in Fourier’s mathematical physics hasnot received the attention it deserves from historians, although his cryptic allusions to the heating of agreenhouse, taken out of context, have been widely cited by subsequent authors.Jean Baptiste Joseph Fourier (1768-1830)was known by his contemporaries as afriendofNapoleon,administrator,Egyptologist, mathematician and scientistwhose fortunes rose and fell with the political tides. He was a mathematics teacher, asecret policeman, a political prisoner(twice), governor of Egypt, prefect of Is&eand Rhone, baron, outcast, and perpetualmember and secretary of the FrenchAcademy of Sciencesr.

His reputation islargely based on his ‘Fourier series’, awidely used mathematical technique inwhich complex functions can be representedby a series of sines and cosines. Amongphysicists and historians of physics, he isalso known for his book Thiorie analytiquede la chaleur (1822), an elegant work thatLord Kelvin described as ‘a great mathematical poem’.Recently, Fourier’s article of 1827,‘Memoire sur les temperatures du globeterrestre et des espaces planemires’, published in the Memoirs of the FrenchAcademy, has been mentioned repeatedly asbeing the first reference in the literature tothe atmospheric ‘greenhouse effect’.

Here Iwill review the origins of this practice anddemonstrate that most of these citations areunreliable, misdirected and anachronistic.While there are indeed greenhouse anal-James Rodger FlemingIs Professor of Science, Technology and Society atColby College, Maine.

He has published extensively on the history of meteorologyand geophysics, including social and military aspects andclimatic change. He serves as a consultant for theAmerican Meteorological Society and is chair of itshistory committee. His books include Meteorologyin America, 1800-1870 (Johns Hopkins UniversityPress, 1990)Science,Technology,and theEnvironmenf(Akron UniversityPress, 1994),lntemafionalBibliography of Mefeoro/ogy (DianeHistoricalEssaysonPublishing,1994)Meteorology(AmericanMeteorologicalSociety,1996) and Historical Perspectiveson ClimateChange (Oxford University Press, 1998). He lives inChina, Maine (not mainland China!) with his wifeMiyoko and two sons, Jamitto and Jason.e-mail: jrfleminOcolby.edu72Endeavour Vol.

23(2) 1999ogies in Fourier’s writings, they are notcentral to his theory of terrestrial temperatures, nor are they unambiguous precursorsof today’s theory of the greenhouse effect.Of greater significance, I will clarify whatFourier actually wrote on the subject ofterrestrial temperatures and locate this topicwithin the context of his analytical theory ofheat.Most people writing on the history of thegreenhouse effect merely cite in passingFourier’s descriptive memoir of 1827 as the‘first’ to compare the heating of the Earth’satmosphere to the action of glass in a greenhouse.

There is usually no evidence thatthey have read Fourier’s original papers ormanuscripts (in French) or have searchedbeyond the obvious secondary sources.Many authors, perhaps relying on secondarysources, mistakenly cite Fourier’s paper of1827 as his first on the subject of terrestrialtemperatures; some claim that it is onlyavailable in French. In fact Fourier presented his paper on terrestrial temperaturesto the Acadtmie Royale des Sciences in1824 and published it that same year in theAnnales de Chimie et de Physique; it wasreprinted in 1827 and translated intoEnglish in the American Journal of Sciencein 1837 (Ref.

2). Secondary sources typically do not acknowledge references byFourier to greenhouses in his magnum opusof 1822 or in his earlier papers. Moreover,existing accounts assume far too much continuity in scientific understanding of thegreenhouse effect from Fourier to today.Even his biographers fail to emphasize thequest for a universal theory of terrestrialtemperatures as a key motivating factor inall of Fourier’s theoretical and experimentalwork on heat.Fourier’s article of 1824In an article published in 1824, JosephFourier presented some ‘general remarks’on the temperature of the Earth and interplanetary space. Fourier provided noequations, and he told his readers that ‘theanalytic details which are omitted here are0160-9327/99/$-seefound in the works which I have alreadypublished’; he called this work a ‘resume’that included results from several earliermemoirs. According to John Herivel, oneof Fourier’s biographers, this essay was‘largely expository in character and addednothing essentially new’ on the subject ofterrestrial temperatures3.In the article, Fourier discussed the heating of the Earth by three distinct sources:(1) solar radiation, which is unequally distributed over the year and which producesthe diversity of climates; (2) the temperature communicated by interplanetary spaceirradiated by the light from innumerablestars; and (3) heat from the interior of theEarth remaining from its formation (Figure 1).He examined in turn each of these sourcesand the phenomena they produce.The article contains an extended discussion of the distribution of solar heating overthe globe caused by the periodic and latitude-dependent nature of the sun’s irradiante.

This section of the paper, based onresults established much earlier by Fourier,was a classic application of Fourier’s analytic techniques. Fourier also discussedanother factor controlling terrestrial temperatures: the internal heat of the globe and itssecular cooling, but he determined this to bea trivial amount: no more than threehundredths of a degree during the course ofrecorded history.The balance of the article is devoted to anexamination of a third factor: the temperature of space and its effect on the temperature of the Earth.

Here reside most ofFourier’s comments on the heating of theatmosphere. According to Fourier, ‘theinfluence of the stars, is equivalent to thepresence of an immense hollow sphere, withthe earth in the center, the constant temperature of which should be a little below whatwould be observed in polar regionsi. In hismost memorable analogy, Fourier comparedthe heating of the atmosphere to the actionof an instrument called a heliothennometer.This instrument, designed and used inscientific mountaineering in the 1760s byfront matter 0 1999 Elsevier Science, All rights reserved. PII: SO160-9327(99)01210-7Figure 1 Heat sources affecting terrestrial temperatures according to Fourier.

‘The earthreceives the rays of the sun, which penetrate its mass, and are converted into non-luminousheat; it likewise possessed an internal heat with which it was created, and which iscontinually dissipated at the surface; and lastly, the earth receives rays of light and heat frominnumerable stars, in the midst of which is placed the solar system. These are the threegeneral causes which determine the temperature of the earth’. Joseph Fourier, 1824 (Ref. 2).Horace Benedict de Saussure, consisted of asmall wooden box lined with a layer ofblack cork.

Sunlightenteredthe boxthrough a window covered with three panesof glass separated by air spaces. Thisarrangement served to magnify the heatingeffect of the Sun’s rays (measured by a thermometer enclosed in the box) while eliminating the cooling effect of wind currents.In 1774, simultaneousheliothermometricobservations taken at different locations bySaussure and an assistant demonstrated anappreciableincrease in solar heat withaltitudes.For Fourier, the atmospherewas likea giant heliothermometer,sandwichedbetween the surface of the Earth and theimaginarycap providedby the finitetemperature of interstellar space. The interior of this heliothermometer,especially thefluid and aerial components,possessedradiative properties of its own: ‘The transparency of the waters appears to concurwith that of the air in augmenting the degreeof heat already acquired, because luminousheat flowing in, penetrates, with little difficulty, the interior of the mass, and non-luminous heat has more difficulty in finding itsway out in a contrary direction’.

Fourieradmitted, however, that it is ‘difficult toknow how far the atmosphere influences themean temperature of the globe; and in thisexamination we are no longer guided by aregular mathematicaltheory’. Fourier’sstatement most suggestive of the greenhouse effect, and most cited out of context,was the following: ‘the temperature [of theEarth] can be augmented by the interposition of the atmosphere, because heat in thestate of light finds less resistance in penetrating the air, than in repassing into the airwhen converted into non-luminous heat’.Fourier concluded by claiming that he had‘united in this article all the principal elements of the analysis of terrestrial temperature’ and had summarized the results of hisearlier researches, ‘long since given to thepublic’.

While raising the possibility thatnew properties of radiating heat or causesmodifying the temperatureof the globemight yet be discovered, he was positivethat ‘all the principal laws of the motion ofheat are known’6. In his mind, this essay of1824 on terrestrial temperatures, althoughproviding no equations, had rendered morecomplete his magnum opus of 1822 on theanalytical theory of heat.Earlier comments by Fourier onterrestrial temperatures andgreenhousesThe question of terrestrial temperatures wason Fourier’s mind as early as 1807, when hewrote on the unequal heating of the globe.By 1816, he had composed a manuscript of650 pages on the subject’.

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